The Effect of Absolutism and Human Rights on Same-sex Relationships

The Duty Formula is a set of reasoning that is used to decide whether or not something can be considered as a human right based on Absolutism or Consequentialism. Through the explanation of Absolutism or Consequentialism, it can be decided if a particular issue is or is not a duty all humans should abide to, then only when the answer to this is positive can this issue qualify as a human right. In the case of the human rights inflation, both side of the argument can be supported by the Duty formula. On one hand, not all rights are absolute. It can be argued that based on absolutism, those rights officially documented by the United Nations such as the right to seek protection against enslavement are absolute, meaning that they are much more important than for instance, the right to travel. To put all rights on the same level would degrade the ones that are absolutely necessary. However, on the other hand, many reforms and policies are developed to fit the human rights criteria because they bring about positive consequences. For instance, some politicians have advocated for the rights to abortion for women, and argue that it should be considered a human right because it gives women more opportunities to complete their education and continue their designed career path, which in turn allows women to be more economically productive within the society. Even though women’s rights are not considered to be a human rights by many, advocating for it to be included within the human rights sphere would bring about a good consequence and push for more development, thus increasing the amount of issues considered as human rights can be justified.

In the 1994 Rwanda Genocide, the U.N. was initially reluctant to be directly involved in the conflict between the Tutsis and Hutus. They sent troops in to the conflict zone as so called “peacekeepers”, whose main purpose was to extract European personnels. The soldiers were not allowed to shoot or engage in violence of any form, nor were they allowed to actively protect the Tutsi people from the Hutus. The U.N. classified the conflict as a civil war with “actions of genocide involved” to justify their inaction because it was unclear if intervention is permissible based on the international law at that time, plus the possible political complications that come with a humanitarian intervention. But due to public pressure, later on the U.N. eventually gave in and intervened, thus ending the genocide.

Dignity is a very important component in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Based on this concept, all humans deserve to be treated equally with honour and respect. One explanation of why all humans deserve dignity is religion. In Christian religion, because man and women are created by God in His own image to live fruitful lives on earth and to rule over other creatures, humans deserve dignity. Similarity, in Confucianism, it is implied that humans deserve dignity due to the intrinsic compassion and goodness within human nature that every person shares. Genocide dehumanises certain groups of people, deem them unworthy of humane treatment, and strip them of dignity. Therefore, it is believed by the majority that by absolutism, human dignity needs to be protected under all circumstances, meaning that all agents, individuals and organisations likewise, have the duty to stop the genocide. Consequently, protection against genocide is a human right and the U.N. thus have the duty and responsibility to actively engage in humanitarian intervention in the case of the Rwanda Genocide.

The issue of discrimination is common when it comes to the rights of sexual minorities. Typically, discrimination is seen as unjust and unfavourable treatment towards a certain social group. But this is a widely held misunderstanding. The original definition of discrimination is to treat a group of people differently in comparison to the average others, which encompasses both positive and negative treatments. Denying a person of a job due to his race is discrimination, but giving someone a better chance to pass a college entrance exam for being a racial minority is also a type of discrimination. The controversy surrounding discrimination of sexual minorities is mainly caused by the discussion on whether or not they deserve some special rights others do not enjoy. Every day, people hear or see things that they do not agree with or offend them, and there is no protection against that for an average person. However, new legislations have been made on racial vilification and anti-discrimination that extends the protection of a person's right to not feel offended, specifically for the minorities. In the views of James Spigelman, a former Australian judge, the freedom to offend is an integral component of freedom of speech; there is no right not to be offended even for minority groups. There should be a distinction between protecting people's dignity against hate speech and protecting people's feelings against offence. As the fundamental human right that is affirmed to be the right to dignity, the law is not obligated to protect people against hurt feelings. It is argued that if everything that offends should be removed, explicit contents like pornography which offends many people, especially women should also be banned. It is self contradictory to make offending others illegal yet allow pornography to remain legal in the name of freedom. Furthermore, by granting minorities the special right to not be offended would be harming the majority’s right to speak freely. Therefore, whether or not minorities should be positively discriminated is debatable.

According to Michael Sandel, a society can limit marriage to only between man and women, can extend it to allow same-sex marriage, or can take away the state’s role in marriage and let it become a private activity. Each type of marriage naturally would have its own advantages. Only allowing heterosexual marriage abides the Natural Law and supports procreation. Children raised in a heterosexual family would be created naturally with a natural father and mother, which fosters a more beneficial environment for them to grow. However, government constitution of homosexual marriage will allow same-sex couples to formalise their relationships with dignity. This will send the message that their relationships are of equivalent standard and that they are not second class citizens. Restricting marriage to different-sex couples will not stop committed relationships between members of the same sex, but will cause social segregation. Further, making marriage entirely private by abolishing the legal aspect of it also makes sense in terms of ending the prolonged debate of what types marriage should be legalised. By removing the state’s role in marriage, all marriages are instantly made equal, with full respect to each individual’s decision and autonomy.

Despite the advantages of making unconventional types of marriage legal, many worry that marking them as human rights would cause human rights inflation. On official lists of human rights such as the UDHR and the European Convention on Human Rights, they specify that these rights are the minimum requirements and conditions for human dignity and a tolerable life (Donnelly, 2013: 16). Based on this definition, without these rights life will no longer bearable. It is doubtful that by not allowing sexual minorities to marry their lives will become unbearable; many couples can still spend their lives together and live a enjoyable life. Therefore it is very difficult to argue that their right to legally marry can be considered a human right. Furthermore, people worry that whenever disputes arise, one side is going to argue his cases by declaring that his human right have been violated. For instance, if a homosexual man applies for a job position and gets rejected, he may very well declare that he was discriminated against and sue the company for violating his human right. But the truth is that many more heterosexual applicants may have been rejected too; they cannot do anything in this situation because they are not the minority. If the society offers minorities more opportunities in fear of being accused of violating human rights, then the majority would actually be discriminated against. In these cases, many would feel that the idea of “human rights” was exploited, thus devaluing and making the term hollow.

It is in my belief that the rights against genocide should qualify as a human right. Genocide brings severe negative consequences. Not to mention the obvious fact that large amounts of people die, any country experiencing a genocide would descend into anarchy and suffer huge economical and social loses, which could take it a very long time in order to recover. By consequentialism, individuals and organisations have the duty to stop these negative consequences by stoping genocides. Therefore, since there is duty, rights against genocide should unquestionably be marked as a human right.

Many believe that rights to sexual minorities should also be a human right. They allege that on the bases of consequentialism, it is the society’s collective duty to ensure their rights because allowing sexual minorities certain rights like legal marriage would bring positive effects such as allowing them to form more stable relationships, enjoy the benefits other normal families enjoy, and add more diversity to the society. However, I do not believe that rights to sexual minorities should qualify as a human right. Granting sexual minorities the right to marry can also bring many negative consequences. First, a child of a same-sex marriage will always be deprived of either his natural mother or father, which could cause problems in the child’s growth and development. Secondly, the natural tendency of such a union is not to create families, as in that children often do not naturally result in their union, defeating one of the main purposes of marriage which is to create new lives. Furthermore, recognising it as a right imposes its acceptance on all society, which is very offensive towards those who believe it to be wrong, especially those with religious reasons; many religious institutions in the U.S. like Roman Catholic Church and National Baptist Convention still find homosexuality unacceptable (Masci and Lipka, 2015). Therefore, when there are also various negative effects, by consequentialism is it is not anybody’s duty to ensure the rights to sexual minorities.

Many would still argue that by absolutism, autonomy should be an absolute right. Because individual choice is absolute, society have the duty to ensure that sexual minorities have the right to marry by their own choice. However, it is in my opinion that this argument has many loopholes and would cause human rights inflation. Marriage should be more about the mutual feeling of love and care, and less about what is written on a piece of legal document. For sexual minorities, if they want to hold a wedding then live as a family, they completely have the option to do so. In most countries, they do have the autonomy to exists as couple or couples based on their own choice. Not being legally registered should not cause problems in their relationship if they truly love each other. Furthermore, I think that some less important “rights” should not become a human right. This is irrelevant to whether or not I personally support the existence of sexual minorities. By definition, only rights that human dignity cannot do without can be considered as human rights. If the rights to sexual minority is compared to rights against genocide, it is significantly less important. Rights to sexual minority is not really so central to the minimum level of human existence that everyone should be legally required to have access to it. It is up to the policy makers to decide if they want to legalise more forms of marriage than the conventional type, but it would make the phrase “human rights” a hollow rhetoric for them to attempt to elevate what they consider to be desirable public polices to the status of basic human rights.